Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada announced Friday morning, Aug. 21, new measures to strengthen \u201cthe feeling of safety\u201d for Montrealers as well as for the police whose job it is to keep them safe.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most important measure announced was the implementation of police body cameras within the next year.<\/p>\n
The Service de police de la Ville de Montr\u00e9al (SPVM) has been one of the last holdouts in the country with regard to body cameras, aside from a 2017 pilot project after which then-mayor Val\u00e9rie Plante deemed body cameras expensive, unwieldy, and ineffective.<\/p>\n
The Martinez Ferrada administration made police bodycams a campaign promise, followed through with $40 million in the budget for same, leading to Friday\u2019s announced promise of their implementation.<\/p>\n
The announcement follows in the wake of the Montr\u00e9al-Nord scandal that brought racism within the SPVM to the fore, and the public meeting held earlier this month where the SPVM and Chief Fady Dagher responded to allegations of racism, racial profiling, and hateful acts against racialized groups and individuals from {span}poste de quartier 39 (PDQ 39){\/span}.<\/p>\n
\u201cMontrealers have every right to be angry,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cThey have every right to criticize the city, challenge our decisions, and hold us accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dagher was on hand for Friday\u2019s announcement, as was Dimitrios Jim Beis, Executive Committee member responsible for security and prevention, and Yves Francoeur, president of the Fraternit\u00e9 des policiers et polici\u00e8res de Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n
The security measures also include adopting regulations \u201caimed at protecting municipal employees against insults, threats, and intimidation.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, from 2019 to 2025, situations of incivility, aggression, and harassment towards city personal have gone up by 263 per cent,\u201d the mayor pointed out. \u201cThis is unacceptable.\u201d She referred, as an example, to the viral video of the man who verbally attacked a policewoman, spouting viciously misogynistic and degrading insults at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic safety and public trust must move forward together,\u201d Martinez Ferrada said.<\/p>\n
Hence, the measures also include regulations aimed at better protecting municipal employees \u2014 including police officers \u2014 against insults, threats, and intimidation.<\/p>\n
Police officers will be equipped with 3,500 bodycams, and about 600 patrol vehicles with dashboard cameras and automated license plate readers to \u201cimprove the safety of police interventions, the quality of digital evidence, and the efficiency of investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added to these measures is a mandate for the city\u2019s Public Safety Commission to gather feedback on the criteria, adopted in 2025, for police stops. \u201cIt is my responsibility,\u201d Beis said, \u201cto ensure that the measures deliver the results we\u2019re aiming for, that they are effective, that they help police officers do their jobs while ensuring the safety of our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ten days earlier, Dagher participated in the public meeting regarding PDQ 39, a meeting he described as \u201ctough\u201d and \u201cvery emotional.\u201d He said that Friday\u2019s announcement \u201chinges on two essential values: transparency and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joel DeBellefeuille of The Red Coalition hopes that this is not a one-way requirement. \u201cWe cannot create a stronger standard of respect for citizens dealing with police while accepting anything less from police dealing with citizens,\u201d Bellefeuille says. \u201cIf we are going to talk about insults, intimidation, respect, and acceptable behaviour during police interactions, then that conversation must go both ways. The law already establishes standards for police officers. We intend to make sure those standards receive the attention and accountability they deserve.\u201d n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada announced Friday morning, Aug. 21, new measures to strengthen \u201cthe feeling of safety\u201d for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[58040,47,9716,5044,17200,10233,50,7439,1240,58038,4201,58039,8002,37938,6417,4658],"class_list":["post-183825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-body-camera","tag-crime","tag-emergency-services","tag-law-enforcement","tag-legal-action","tag-mayor","tag-montreal","tag-national-security","tag-police","tag-police-body-camera","tag-police-officer","tag-public-security","tag-safety","tag-service-de-police-de-la-ville-de-montral","tag-social-issues","tag-soraya-martinez-ferrada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}